CHAPTER I WOMEN'S RIGHTS UNDER ROMAN LAW, 27 B.C.-527 A.D. Originally women were always under guardianship--But under the Empire the entire equality of the sexes was recognised--Women in marriage--Their power over their property--Divorce--Women engaged in all business pursuits--Instances of women suing and pleading in law--Partiality of the law towards women--Rights of inheritance--Rights to higher education fully allowed--Provision made for poor children to be educated--The Vestals--Female slaves--Remarkable growth of humanitarianism towards slaves under the Empire--Sources CHAPTER II WOMEN AND THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH Christ laid down ethical principles but not minute regulations--The Apostles affected by Jewish and Oriental or Greek conceptions of women--Examples of these--St. Paul and St. Peter on the position of women--The Church Fathers elaborated these teachings--Examples of their contempt for women--Mingled with admiration for particular types of women--Their views of marriage--Their strictures on unbecoming dress--Summary of their views and how the status of women was affected by them--Sources CHAPTER III RIGHTS OF WOMEN AS MODIFIED BY THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS Old Roman Law not abrogated suddenly--Divorce--Adultery--Second marriages--Engagements--Donations between husband and wife--Sundry enactments on marriage--Inheritance--Guardianship--Bills of Attainder of Christian Emperors merciless, in contrast to acts of pagan predecessors--Sources CHAPTER IV WOMEN AMONG THE GERMANIC PEOPLES A second world force to modify the status of women--Accounts of Caesar and Tacitus on position of women among Germanic peoples--The written laws of the barbarians--Guardianship--Marriage--Power of the husband--Divorce--Adultery--The Church indulgent to kings--Remarriage--Property rights--Peculiarities of the criminal law--Minutely-graded fines--Compurgation and ordeals--Innocence tested by the woman walking over red-hot ploughshares--Women in slavery--Comparison of position of women under Roman and under Germanic laws--Influence of theology--Sources CHAPTER V DIGRESSION ON THE LATER HISTORY OF ROMAN LAW Explanation of the various social and political forces which affected the position of women in the Middle Ages CHAPTER VI THE CANON LAW AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Canon law reaffirms the subjection of women--Women and marriage--Protection to women--Divorce--Cardinal Gibbons on protection of injured wives by Popes--Catholic Church has no divorce--But it allows fourteen reasons for declaring marriage null and void and leaving a husband or wife free to remarry--Some of these explained--Diriment impediments and dispensations--Historical instances of the Roman Church's inconsistency--Attitude towards women at present day--Opinions of Cardinals Gibbon and Moran, and Rev. David Barry and Rev. William Humphrey--Sources CHAPTER VII WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN ENGLAND